


Now I'm Missing Your Smile (Hear Me Out)

by sarcasm_princess



Category: Faking It (TV 2014)
Genre: Christmastime, F/F, F/M, Wedding Hijinks, let's pretend season 3 never happened, uhh 10 years into the future
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-02-27
Updated: 2021-02-27
Packaged: 2021-03-18 07:20:50
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 1,628
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29730339
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sarcasm_princess/pseuds/sarcasm_princess
Summary: Years after the Hester crowd has graduated college and gone their own seperste ways, they all find their way back into town- just in time for Lauren's festive wedding. Newly single Karma finds her way back to Amy when she's home for the holidays, prompting her to wonder about what could have been.
Relationships: Karma Ashcroft/Amy Raudenfeld, Liam Booker/Lauren Cooper
Comments: 4
Kudos: 6





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Can't believe I'm still writing about these two after all these years. Glad to be on ao3 now instead of ff.net. No socials to promote. Enjoy :)

“Rise and shine!”

Amy awakes to her bedroom curtains being thrust open as light pours in. Before she can react, a bridesmaid’s dress is tossed onto the bed next to her and her morning plans of sleeping off her jet-lag are hastily thrown off course.

She sits up and finally turns to look at Lauren, who is impatiently standing in the doorway of her childhood bedroom. Fully dressed and more than slightly annoyed.

“I flew into town at  _ three _ o’clock this morning, got into a fight with  _ two _ angry men at baggage claim who apparently lost my luggage, and haven’t even gotten  _ one _ moment to myself since falling asleep last night. Not in the mood.” she explains, throwing in a death glare to her step-sister for good measure.

“Glad to see your countdown skills are in-tact. That’ll come in handy when we go out caroling in six hours.  _ The 12 Days of Christmas _ is our opener.”

“ _ Six _ hours?” Amy asks, confused. She could have sworn none of this was happening until at  _ least _ dinnertime.

“It’s noon.” Lauren asks. 

She looks at Amy like she’s an idiot, but Amy just whips her head around to look at her alarm clock.

“Shit.” she mumbles.

Sure enough, it  _ was _ noon. 12:09 to be precise. Amy could have sworn she’d only been asleep for an hour at  _ most _ .

“You also have to be at your dress fitting in three hours so I’d focus on putting pants on and… looking presentable. People are coming back into town for this, you know? I’m off the market in just a few more days. This is a big deal.”

Amy rolls her eyes, “Right.”

The memories come flooding back through her as she starts to wake up. She’s here, in her old house, with a whole week of…  _ stuff _ ahead of her. Because Lauren decided to have a New Year’s Eve wedding. Because  _ of course _ she did. And Amy’s the lucky maid of honor. Because  _ of course  _ she is.

She catapults a pillow towards the door and thankfully it’s just enough to get Lauren off her back. Once she’s certain there’s no one lingering in her doorway, Amy slowly and dramatically flings herself out of bed.

With no suitcase and, by extension, no luggage, she’s forced to find something in her old closet. Her old high school wardrobe (that was left here for a reason) consists of ripped jeans and blank t-shirts from the discount bin at Kohl's. Primarily things that don’t exactly fit the winter wedding aesthetic, but she has a week and a half to figure something out so they’ll have to do for now.

Amy reaches for the handles on her closet door and to her surprise  _ and _ chagrin, they don’t open. She tries again, yanking harder this time. No luck.

It’s ironic, really. She spent so many years at home stuck in the closet and now the minute she actually needs to she can’t get in.

After another four and a half minutes of trying to pry the doors open, Amy gives up. There’s no way she’s getting into this closet before a cup of morning coffee. Defeatedly, she yanks last night’s jeans off of the floor and tugs them back on, not even bothering to look in the mirror before heading out to the kitchen for breakfast. Or maybe lunch?

She’s still mentally debating whether or not 12:30 is an appropriate breakfast hour when her foot catches itself on a roll of christmas tree garland. Before she knows it, she’s in the air… and on the ground.

Her face hits the cool wood floors with a thud and suddenly she’s eye-level with a room full of boxes. Amy can’t quite tell where the christmas decorations end and where the wedding decor begins, but she  _ definitely _ knows that her hair is now tangled up with fake pine needles that’ll surely take a village to pick out.

“‘Tis the  _ damn _ season.”


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Posting chapter two tonight as well because if you are reading karmy fics in 2021 you don't want to waste your time on something unfinished.

Karma’s drunk. It’s noon and she’s drunk. She can’t quite remember how late it was when she poured her last glass of flat champagne, but waking up tipsy is far better than either alternative so she’ll take it.

She hears the shower running from the hotel bathroom and after looking at the open suitcase full of men’s clothing on the bed next to hers, she pieces together that Liam must have come in some time after she did last night. Maybe it’s the lingering alcohol, but she considers joining him for a split-second, before shaking away the thought. She’s mentally present enough to know that anything of that nature would be a bad idea, and so instead Karma decides that she’s envious of his ability to fly into town even later than she did and still be awake and functioning.

She rolls over to check her phone, and as she does the shower turns off.

No new messages.

It’s bittersweet, really.

Bittersweet in the sense that no new messages mean Amy  _ didn’t _ see her sitting two rows behind on the plane. Karma can’t tell if she’s relieved or hurt by this revelation.

It was a connecting flight from DC to Texas. Nothing fancy… except for the fact that it happened to have been the same connecting flight Amy was taking into town for the wedding. Karma noticed her first, absentmindedly thumbing through the air catalogue. It was a miracle her legs could carry her back to her own seat because it felt like she had been electrocuted. 

They’d talked since moving. If anyone asked Karma, she swore up and down that they still talked. And although that was true for the occasional birthday text, they truthfully haven't  _ talked _ in years. 

Karma hadn’t even  _ seen _ Amy since her own wedding and lord knows how much has happened since then.

Maybe that’s why seeing her on the plane activated a fight or flight (no pun intended) response within her. That’s as good a reason as any for her heart rate to skyrocket, right? Though… an underlying yet overwhelming urge to hug someone and take back all of the fights and the bad days isn’t typically part of the brain’s fight or flight agenda.

Karma realizes how long she’s been thinking when she looks over and sees Liam, fully dressed and tightening his tie in the mirror.

“Hola.” she says, as casually as she can manage.

“You’re awake.” he observes.

“I am,” she replies, “why are you dressed all fancy today? What do you think we’re doing?”

Liam turns to look at her for the first time since arriving.

“Lunch with your parents.”

_ Fuck. _ That’s today.

“Can’t we just postpone that to... dinner with my parents?”

He rolls his eyes in a way that Karma would have found endearing just a few years ago, but not now. Not here.

“We have dinner with the wedding party tonight,” he reminds her, and besides, we can’t keep putting this off. It’s been almost a year. I moved out months ago. We have to tell everyone at some point.”

“Isn’t it bad luck to tell your family and friends you’re divorced a week before someone’s wedding? That’s got to be bad luck.”

Liam had always been Karma’s safety net. Maybe that’s why she agreed to marry him right out of college. Maybe that’s why she couldn’t bring herself to go public with the news. It wasn’t a messy divorce, by any means. Nothing compared to Amy and Lauren’s parents- though they did get remarried, surprisingly enough. 

All it took was a difficult conversation and a few signed papers and just like that, Karma was an Ashcroft again. At first, there was no pressing need to tell anyone about their… situation. She and Liam were still living together, just as roommates this time. Of course, Liam met up with Shane the night things were finalized, and Karma almost considered calling Amy to tell her everything, but then again Amy was god knows where doing god knows what so the call was one that was never made. The divorce was one of those secrets that grew into a secret by accident. After all, waiting for the right time to tell people only ever resulted in the “right time” feeling more and more nonexistent. 

“I don’t like it when you’re right.” Karma points a wobbly finger at Liam and pouts ever so slightly.

“You never did.”

He helps her get out of bed and throws a shirt and a pair of slacks at her from the suitcase next to her bed.

“These aren’t my clothes, genius.”

Karma throws them back at him.

“Well they came from  _ your _ suitcase.”

The bundled up outfit has turned into a projectile at this point and Liam only reinforces this when he tosses the ensemble right back to Karma.

“Huh.” she looks at the unfamiliar clothes and then down into the suitcase filled with… more unfamiliar clothes.

Liam sighs, “Don’t tell me you grabbed the wrong bag from baggage claim.”

“I’m not saying that’s what happened…” she takes a pause, “But I’m also not saying that didn’t... not happen.”

“Clearly the champagne refills on  _ your  _ plane were free last night.”

“As a matter of fact, they were.” Karma’s argument doesn’t exactly pull the weight she thinks it does, so she resigns herself to this and throws on the strange laundry- just about  _ praying _ that it’s clean.

For whatever reason, the outfit feels  _ right _ \- even if the pants  _ do _ bunch up a bit around the ankles.

“Ready to go now?”

Liam’s dress shirt and tie are a nearly hilarious contrast to Karma’s grunge ensemble, but for some reason it worked. Today might actually be a good day as any to emphasize their dissonance. If they’re lucky, it’ll soften the blow.

“Ready as I can be.”


End file.
